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New state House Democratic leader Mark Pafford a lifelong Dolphins fan, says stadium deal could be included in gaming bill

Mark Pafford (D-West Palm Beach), the state House Democratic leader-designate for the 2014-16 terms, was born the year the Dolphins became a team (1966) and grew up in North Miami when it was the Dolphins and not much else.

“Really there was only one team until the late ’70s. It was the Dolphins,” Pafford said. “About 1979, 1980 it also became the Hurricanes. That’s all we had really. If you weren’t spending your days at a local field playing football yourself you were waiting for Sunday to kind of fill up the time. It was the whole world.”

Pafford was a kicker at North Miami High in the early 1980s and his high school coach was Larry Ball, a linebacker for the undefeated ’72 Dolphins who has the distinction of being the only player who was on both an undefeated and a winless team (’76 Bucs).

When Pafford blew his ACL, Ball brought him to the Dolphins training facility which was at St. Thomas University at the time.

“I injured my knee very badly and I didnt know at the time it was really the end of my career,” Pafford said. “Oddly enough it was pretty cool to know a guy that can take you over to St. Thomas and get you taped up by the same guy taping up the professionals and show you how to best protect your knee.”

Mark’s brother Mike tried out for the Dolphins as a punter in the early 1990s under special teams coach Mike Westhoff.
“He could punt but never took a hit in his life,” Pafford said. “They passed.”

Life is much different for Pafford these days. He has risen up in the ranks in the state house and was elected last week to be the leader of the minority party. It’s the same state house that wouldn’t even consider a bill earlier this year to allow Miami-Dade County voters to vote on a one cent hotel bed tax increase to fund renovations to Sun Life Stadium. Without a renovated stadium, the NFL will no longer hold Super Bowls at Sun Life.

Pafford said “as much as I’m a Dolphins fan” he’s not sure how he would voted because he never saw an actual piece of legislation.

“I would have taken a look to try to understand what the consequences would’ve been with revenue taken away from the budget,” Pafford said. “It’s hard to say without ever seeing a piece of legislation put in front of you. I would’ve asked some pretty serious questions in terms of what the overall impact would have been.”

Pafford said that some Republicans, and a few Democrats in the state house, won’t consider any tax increases right now, including tourism tax increases. And he said the Marlins stadium deal hurt the Dolphins.

“These days the ‘T’ word in Tallahassee, it really does not have any type of support whatsoever,” he said.

House Speaker Will Weatherford, who got into a back-and-forth with Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and then-team CEO Mike Dee when the house wouldn’t vote on the bill, still has one year left as speaker. Although Ross is still aggressively pursuing a stadium deal, Pafford said it might be tough with Weatherford in power.

But Pafford said he could also see the stadium potentially being part of a gambling bill.

“Folks want to get into card games type of things,” Pafford said. “I’m hearing that’s going to be a big issue. And so with all of these entertainment type of things you really wonder if in fact they can put it into a single bill. Nothing would really surprise me. Anything can happen in the legislature.”

As for the Dolphins, Pafford still fondly remembers attending training camp at St. Thomas with his family and getting autographs from players like Larry Little. He said NFL players back then were approachable and seemed more like local celebrities than national stars.

His all-time favorite player?

“The name that comes to me is Dwight Stephenson,” Pafford said. “It wasn’t Benny Malone although Benny Malone was just an incredibly exciting runner. You had Mark Duper, Mark Clayton, Tony Nathan, Bruce Hardy. You’re talking about individuals that didn’t go very far but you can’t take away what they did with the Dolphins.”

Pafford said he’s more excited about the Dolphins then he’s been in a while.

“Every year I get excited,” he said. “This year I happen to be a little more excited because it does seem Philbin has got a very conservative, very disciplined approach. I think they’ve had some good coaches since Shula but for whatever reason, and there have been many, they have not been able to achieve the greatness of the early ’70s. Even with the Marino teams, there were weaknesses.

“You had a quarterback with Marino who was arguably the best ever in the NFL. But you had defenses going up against the Dolphins that knew what they were doing. They never had a tremendous running game. Now it seems to be more balanced often that not. You’ve got a defense coming into their own. You’ve got a new coach. And so I’m hoping before I die they can get back in the Super Bowl and actually win one.”